Sam's Ghost eBook

My fust idea was to take it to Mrs. Bullet, and then,
all of a sudden, the thought struck me: “Suppose
he ’adn’t come by it honest?”

I walked up and down agin, thinking. If he ’adn’t,
and it was found out, it would blacken his good name
and break ’is pore wife’s ’art.
That’s the way I looked at it, and for his
sake and ’er sake I determined to stick to it.

I felt ’appier in my mind when I ’ad decided
on that, and I went round to the Bear’s Head
and ’ad a pint. Arter that I ’ad
another, and then I come back to the wharf and put
the watch and chain on and went on with my work.

Every time I looked down at the chain on my waistcoat
it reminded me of Sam. I looked on to the river
and thought of ’im going down on the ebb.
Then I got a sort o’ lonesome feeling standing
on the end of the jetty all alone, and I went back
to the Bear’s Head and ’ad another pint.

They didn’t find the body, and I was a’most
forgetting about Sam when one evening, as I was sitting
on a box waiting to get my breath back to ’ave
another go at sweeping, Joe Peel, Sam’s mate,
came on to the wharf to see me.

He came in a mysterious sort o’ way that I didn’t
like: looking be’ind ’im as though
he was afraid of being follered, and speaking in a
whisper as if ’e was afraid of being heard.
He wasn’t a man I liked, and I was glad that
the watch and chain was stowed safe away in my trowsis-pocket.

“I’ve ’ad a shock, watchman,”
he ses.

“Oh!” I ses.

“A shock wot’s shook me all up,”
he ses, working up a shiver. “I’ve
seen something wot I thought people never could see,
and wot I never want to see agin. I’ve
seen Sam!”

I thought a bit afore I spoke. “Why, I
thought he was drownded,” I ses.

“So ’e is,” ses Joe. “When
I say I’ve seen ’im I mean that I ’ave
seen his ghost!”

He began to shiver agin, all over.

“Wot was it like?” I ses, very calm.

“Like Sam,” he ses, rather short.

“When was it?” I ses.

“Last night at a quarter to twelve,” he
ses. “It was standing at my front door
waiting for me.”

“And ’ave you been shivering like that
ever since?” I ses.

“Worse than that,” ses Joe, looking at
me very ’ard. “It’s wearing
off now. The ghost gave me a message for you.”

I put my ’and in my trowsis-pocket and looked
at ’im. Then I walked very slow, towards
the gate.

“It gave me a message for you,” ses Joe,
walking beside me. “’We was always pals,
Joe,’” it ses, “’you and me,
and I want you to pay up fifteen bob for me wot I
borrowed off of Bill the watchman. I can’t
rest until it’s paid,’ it ses. So
here’s the fifteen bob, watchman.”

He put his ’and in ’is pocket and takes
out fifteen bob and ’olds it out to me.